France - 3rd Edition

Travelling through amazing countryside, rolling hills and farms - from the Mid Pyrenees into the High Pyrenees - and passing through many small and isolated French villages we realised how lucky we were weatherwise. The day was fantastically sunny and the journey long and very, very interesting. Many of the minor roads, which we tend to travel as opposed to motorways, are lined with very old, proud Plane trees which have been planted very close to the edge of the road - either that or the road has been widened to meet modern traffic volumes - which give the sense that the trees are literally jumping out at you as you drive through. It can be very disconcerting as you drive along seeing these majestic, gnarled, elderly trees, a little bruised here and there, especially with the overhang that Molly has!!!!! We are on our way to a campsite at Plage de Vieux Boucau near Port d'Albret and as we pass through Thermes Magnoac, Castelnau Magnoac, Puntous, Trie-ser-Baise, Castex Mielan and Tillac we come to the magical town of Marciac which actually encourages campervans to stop by providing a special parking area to do so. We are just to the South of Bordeaux and although we feel we are in the middle of nowhere we are surrounded by vineyards and even a Circus School????? The autumn colours are stunning.

There is little traffic, we have passed one camper during the last 100kms, and at St.Germè we see our first centre pivot (Rob and Rach)!!!!!!

We bypass Tasque (too big) and hit Villeneuve where obviously they are celebrating something because everyone has a dead pinetree at their gate decorated with white, scrunched up paper balls!!!! If anyone can throw a light on this strange tradition we would love to hear from you otherwise we will just remain ignorant.

Travelling on through Artasenx and back out into the countryside we find a "Vietnamese Restaurant" literally in the middle of nowhere. My, this is certainly some adventure today.

Anyway after hitting a few kilometres of heavy fog - on a beautiful sunny day? - we arrive at Plage de Viuex Boucau, just outside of Soustons. Having looked at 2 overcrowded Camperstops, where revolving campers go "out" and back "in" to overcome the 3 day maximum stay because it is a cheap French family holiday, we opt for the campsite at the base of the sand dunes on a surfer beach. Magic.

From here we can bike to the little town, walk along the beach, visit the Saturday market for local produce, relax and have fun. We spend 3 wonderful days here but the whole place will soon close down for the season. We are finding this a lot.

Next stop St. Jean de Luz just South of Biarritz where we sat on the rocks watching the roaring waves and the surfies trying to catch that "special one", and then yes - the French leg of our journey is over, until next time, for tomorrow we arrive in Spain.